


To Rust Unburnish'd

by dewinter



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 14:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3653703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dewinter/pseuds/dewinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘You’re not an art student,’ Bond says. It’s a statement, not a question. </p><p>‘How did you work that out?’ </p><p>Bond raises an eyebrow. ‘Hardly original, was it? <i>The inevitability of time</i>.’</p><p>‘Perhaps I didn’t want to show off.’</p><p>‘Yes, you did.’ </p><p>*</p><p>The one where Bond's first impression of the boy in the gallery is, in fact, the correct one. The universe realigns, eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Rust Unburnish'd

The man saunters away down the length of the gallery. A stiff, careful gait. Something wary about it. Francis watches him for a few seconds. When he looks back, a group of Spanish tourists, clutching gift bags from Madame Tussauds, is blocking his view of the _Temeraire_.

 

Francis sits there a little longer, watching them peer perplexed at the caption. They wander away, puzzling over their origamic floorplans, and he’s left alone again with Turner and his dying skies and relics of war. It’s spoiled, though, the colours muted suddenly and the symbolism too garish. He comes here at least once a month, and always finds himself back here, drowning in that triangular, dwindling horizon, tracing the masts and smokestacks and marvelling, marvelling. But it’s hollow, now, for the first time.

 

 _Bloody big ship,_ he thinks. Nothing special.

 

*

 

Q is disguised as a security guard, sitting primly on a stool just inside the Impressionist gallery. Bond refrains from rolling his eyes. Q views anything that takes him outside the lab as an adventure.

 

‘Q,’ he mutters out of the corner of his mouth, positioning himself by a particularly dour Sisley view of the Seine and feigning rapture.

 

‘007,’ Q says, nudging a small black case by his feet into Bond’s line of sight.

 

‘A present? For me?’ Bond says, smirking.

 

‘Though you’ve done little to deserve it,’ Q snaps, as much as possible while whispering.

 

‘Anything fancy?’

 

Q pauses to let a crocodile of schoolchildren scurry past, little red jumpers and grey skirts, Velcro fasteners on their tiny shoes.

 

‘A few bits and pieces. Your gun’s coded to your palm-print alone. And a radio transmitter.’

 

‘In case you lose me.’

 

‘In case you decide to spend months swanning about in the South Pacific.’

 

‘I was _dead._ ’

 

‘That would have made my life easier, 007.’

 

Bond smiles, despite himself. ‘Let me guess, it’s all very expensive and I’m to bring it back in one piece?’

 

‘I won’t even waste my breath.’

 

Bond risks a glance straight at Q. ‘Good to see you again, Q,’ he says.

 

Q harrumphs irately. ‘I will reserve judgement before returning the sentiment,’ he says, and gets up, slipping into the next gallery without a backward glance.

 

Bond waits a full minute before picking up the case. He casts a cursory glance at the Manets on the opposite wall, before ambling back the way he came.

 

*

 

Whistlejacket dwarfs him, hooves drumming the air far above him, one wild eye gleaming.

 

‘And I suppose this represents the fragility of man?’ a dry voice says next to him. ‘The power of nature, that sort of thing?’

 

Francis smiles.

 

‘It’s just a bloody big horse,’ he says, turning to face his companion.

 

‘Ah.’ The man nods knowingly. He’s carrying a small black case which Francis is pretty sure he didn’t enter the gallery with. Francis notices his eyes more, now, Jasper-blue.

 

They look at the painting in silence for several moments – if he traces the gloss and gleam of Whistlejacket’s coat, maybe the man will go, maybe he’ll move away to the Dutch flower painters, leave Francis alone with a modest, dwindling memory of the rugged line of his jaw, and nothing else, nothing more dangerous.

 

‘I’d like to take you to dinner,’ the man says. His confidence is breathtaking.

 

Francis frowns.

 

‘Why?’

 

‘To exchange a few more wry barbs about art history, of course.’

 

‘Of course.’ His voice is steady, as though he does this all the time. ‘I like Italian,’ he says blithely, and follows the man down the length of the gallery, watching the rigid set of his shoulders all the way.

 

*

 

There’s a car parked round the corner, chauffeur at the wheel, but Bond hails them a cab. It’s nice to play at normal, on occasion.

 

‘I’m sorry, I would take you for drinks first, but I have to be at Heathrow by nine. You don’t mind dinner this early?’

 

The boy has long legs; his knees are angled towards Bond. ‘Stubbs always makes me work up an appetite.’

 

‘I’ll say,’ Bond replies, lets his voice purr a little.

 

He likes that the boy is playing his cards close to his chest, or trying to. He likes how fragile the bones of his wrists look, too, and the sharp hinge of his jaw. Bond wonders what they’d make of that, back at headquarters, that parade of sour-mouthed, prim psychiatrists.

 

‘By the way, the name’s Bond,’ he says, reaching across the cab. The boy doesn’t look fazed to be offered such an antiquated gesture, and he has a firm handshake. ‘James Bond.’

 

‘Francis,’ the boy says, unsmiling. His voice is both soft and clipped all at once. Bond likes that, too.

 

The Dorchester is less than ten minutes away. It would be simpler. Crisp sheets and chilled champagne and one hand wrapped around both of those wrists, his teeth buried in the tendons of that neck. Bond wonders how far the boy – how far Francis can see without his glasses, and whether he leaves them on when he’s in bed with someone.

 

‘Italian, you said?’ he says, glancing outside at the tourists and the pigeons.

 

‘Do you know Locanda Locatelli?’

 

‘Just off the Marble Arch?’

 

‘That’s the one.’

 

Bond nods briefly. He’s impressed. Expensive, but not obscenely so. Something of a dare – to see how far he’s willing to stretch this little game.

 

He’d have him in the shower, rough and quick, thigh-aching, the water slicking down that ridiculous mop of hair. He’d leave fingerprints on his hips and in between his ribs, and leave him sleeping while he flew to Shanghai to kill a man. The beds in the Dorchester are comfortable. Francis looks like he could use a good night’s sleep.

 

It’s tempting. London slips by, grey stone and yellow lines.

 

Conversation’s what he needs. Not word association or M’s peevish orders or even Tanner’s good-natured, half-shrewd chit-chat. And not the swallowing, dulling silence of beaches on the other side of the world – no responsibility, no mission, no rules, and no reason to stay alive.

 

The Dorchester will wait. If he makes it back from Shanghai alive.

 

*

 

‘You’re not an art student,’ Bond says, as their food arrives. It’s a statement, not a question.

 

‘No.’

 

The ravioli is so good Francis has to bite back a moan.

 

‘How did you work that out?’

 

Bond raises an eyebrow. ‘Hardly original, was it? _The inevitability of time._ ’

 

‘Perhaps I didn’t want to show off.’

 

‘Yes, you did.’

 

Francis straightens his dessert fork; leaves his fingertips anchored on the tablecloth. ‘Yes,’ he concedes, smiling slightly, ‘I did.’

 

When he looks up from the table, Bond is scrutinising him. It’s not altogether pleasant – it feels a little like a tutorial with a particularly demanding academic.

 

‘So. You’re not a student. Or…’ Bond takes a sip of wine, his eyes never leaving Francis’. ‘You’re not an _art_ student. Your presence in the gallery on a Tuesday afternoon indicates you are not in regular employment. Your wardrobe would suggest you’re several years older than the typical undergraduate, but that your earnings are insufficient to maintain an appearance commensurate with your age and obvious intelligence. I’m going to guess graduate student. And…judging by the way you’ve arranged your ravioli, you have a fondness for patterns and order.’

 

Francis looks automatically down at his plate. Sure enough, the nine remaining ravioli are arranged in neat rows of three. Francis tries surreptitiously to push one out of kilter with his fork.

 

‘Something mathematical, then,’ Bond says, and smiles suddenly. _Wolfish_ is the only word for it. ‘Give me your hand,’ he says.

 

Francis sees his hand extend across the tabletop before he can really think about it, as though controlled from outside his body. Bond turns the hand palm side up, his fingers warm around Francis’ wrist, and taps lightly on his fingertips. He hums in satisfaction.

 

‘Computer science,’ he says, with only the slightest trace of triumph, leaning back in his chair.

 

Francis swallows a bigger mouthful of wine than he’d intended to cover his surprise and the small stab of irrational irritation.

 

‘Yes. Imperial,’ he says carefully. It rankles. ‘That’s a neat party trick.’

 

‘It’s my job.’

 

‘Are you a counsellor?’

 

Bond dabs at his mouth with his napkin. Francis tries not to squirm in his seat.

 

‘No, I’m not,’ Bond says. It’s clear he won’t offer anything else.

 

‘What _do_ you do, then?’ Francis feels like a petulant child, asking.

 

Bond looks at him over his wine glass. The lines at the corners of his eyes tighten minutely. It’s hard to tell whether it’s a smile or a frown.

 

Finally, he says, ‘I’m in the diplomatic corps.’

 

‘That must be…interesting,’ Francis says, pathetically.

 

Bond chuckles. Francis might be the subject of the joke; he can’t tell. ‘It is,’ he says drily. His voice is a low rumble; it would feel heavenly against his skin, Francis knows.

 

*

 

Medical takes two hours to clear him, despite his frequent assurances that he sustained no injuries of note in Macau. He slips past M’s office before she can pull him in for a lengthy debrief. It’ll be a while before the interrogations start, no doubt.

 

Severine died badly, horribly. She was terrified. It sticks in his craw; that, and Silva’s looming, knowing face. The silence echoing down empty, abandoned streets. The London air is grimy on his skin.

 

It’s the work of twenty minutes to find his way to the hot, cramped office high up in an imposing building off Kensington Road. Francis is sitting with his back to the door, his fingers tapping incessantly, the rest of his body ramrod straight and still. He’s surrounded by three huge monitors.

 

‘Are you free for drinks?’ Bond says without preamble. Francis wheels round in his chair, and Bond catches a flash of fear and panic cross his face before he schools his expression back into stern dispassion.

 

‘It’s not even midday,’ Francis says.

 

‘I’m still on Shanghai time,’ Bond replies, not moving from the doorway. Francis frowns, and it looks as though he’s about to ask how Bond found him. He purses his lips, though, and refrains.

 

‘I have to finish this,’ he says, turning back to his monitors. ‘Give me five minutes.’

 

It takes three. Bond enjoys watching him work. He wishes he could see his face, see his mouth set in concentration. He enjoys the show of indifference, too. It’s almost convincing.

 

‘Bar 190?’ he says as Francis finishes, holding the door for him. Francis looks momentarily flustered at the gesture, but recovers quickly.

 

‘I don’t drink in the middle of the day,’ he says, still standing in the doorway. ‘My flat’s in Fulham. My flatmate’s on secondment in Bratislava. You can come back and fuck me, if you like.’

 

It sounds nonchalant, but there’s the tiniest tremor in his voice, and he reaches up an agitated hand to brush his hair out of his eyes.

 

‘Well, that sounds like a markedly better offer,’ Bond murmurs in his ear. ‘Lead the way.’

 

Francis’ flat is cluttered, lived-in. They shuffle their way past dead plants and piles of old medical journals, into a slightly neater bedroom. Francis sighs when Bond gets his hand inside his boxers.

 

Bond kisses the underside of his jaw, and follows it up with his teeth. Francis hisses, and it goes straight to Bond’s cock.

 

‘You want this?’ he growls in Francis’ ear.

 

Francis pulls Bond backwards onto the bed, and buries his hands in Bond’s hair. ‘Yes, yes,’ he pants. His mouth is slick and hot on Bond’s throat.

 

‘God, I’m going to take you apart,’ Bond whispers, low and urgent. He presses their bodies together, inch to inch, and he doesn’t think of Severine once.

 

‘How was Shanghai?’ Francis asks, drowsily, after. His hair is a mess, more than usual.

 

‘Good,’ Bond says. It’s unnervingly domestic. He’s suddenly gripped with a mad urge to tell Francis about the komodo dragon that ate his gun. It would amuse him, maybe. Or to tell him about the look in Patrice’s eyes as the void opened up beneath him. If there were words.

 

‘It was good,’ he repeats softly, but Francis is already asleep, his stomach warm and soft against Bond’s hip.

 

Bond’s phone vibrates. _007 report SIS HQ 1400 hours,_ Tanner’s message reads. _Q wants your input while his crew decrypt Silva’s files._

 

Bond pulls the covers up over Francis’ shoulders before he leaves.

 

*

 

‘ _Christ_. What happened?’

 

Bond looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. His face is grey with stubble, and there’s a dead, grim look in his eyes. He’s aged years in the two days since Francis saw him last.

 

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he growls, and pushes Francis back into the flat, his broad hands already pulling at the hem of Francis’ shirt. He smells faintly of bonfires.

 

It’s fierce and grasping and there’s no tenderness in it at all. Not like last time. Even the kisses feel like battles. When he comes, Bond muffles a shout against Francis’ collarbone. It takes a minute for them both to catch their breath.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ Bond murmurs, eventually. His chest is still heaving. ‘I shouldn’t have—’

 

‘No,’ Francis says, rolling onto his side so he can look at him properly. ‘No, I liked it. I’d have stopped you if I didn’t.’

 

Bond laughs mirthlessly. Francis isn’t sure what the joke is. It’s a feeling he gets a lot, around Bond. He snakes an arm over Bond’s chest, though, because every gentle touch he’s permitted feels like a victory. Bond folds his arm over Francis’, trapping him.

 

Francis rests his cheek on Bond’s shoulder, so he doesn’t have to look at the misery and exhaustion lining his face. They lie like that for long minutes. Bond’s body is still tense and taut, muscles coiled-up, like he’s braced for an attack. The room smells of sex and the toast Francis burned earlier.

 

Dusk is falling when Bond breaks the silence.

 

‘I kill people for a living,’ he says into Francis’ hair. It hums through Francis’ temples, and he pulls away to look at him for a moment. Bond stares him down, ice-blue. ‘For a very good living,’ he adds.

 

‘Oh,’ Francis says. It occurs to him for a moment that Bond might be lying, or delusional. He knows, though – he knows he’s neither. There are craters and jagged, scarred-up chasms in the lunarscape of Bond’s body, and they say, _knife wound, gunshot, torture._ They say _danger, death, murder._

 

‘Why did you tell me that?’

 

Bond looks away. ‘There was a woman…’ he begins, and stops. He presses his lips together so hard they go white. ‘I loved someone, a long time ago. And she lied to me.’ He looks up at the ceiling; there’s a wry, cold smile twitching at the corner of his lips. ‘I suppose you could say it broke what was left of my heart.’

 

Francis swallows. Bond’s arm is heavy across his. Francis no longer feels in control of the gentleness.

 

Bond sighs. ‘And then my boss died yesterday.’ He catches Francis’ eye. ‘No, it wasn’t me who killed her. Or maybe it was, in a way.’ He chuckles. There’s no joy in it; it makes Francis shiver. ‘Let this be a lesson to you. Don’t pick up strange men in art galleries,’ he says.

 

‘I’ll take that under advisement,’ Francis mumbles into Bond’s sweat-stained shoulder. It’s easier to follow his lead, play at teasing, than to say _are you okay?_ or _how many people have you killed?_

He must be mad, to be still lying here.

 

Bond’s phone chirrups. He gets out of bed and walks naked across the room to retrieve it. He’s beautiful, in a way, like chipped marble, the crumbling caryatids on the Erechtheion. A body that’s killed men – women, too. That men and women have no doubt tried to kill in return. Francis misses the warmth of it already.

 

‘I have to go,’ Bond says, once he’s checked the message. ‘I have a funeral to attend tomorrow. And there’ll be an inquest. _Jesus.’_ He runs a hand over his face.

 

Francis sits up with the sheets pooled around his waist. He feels young and selfish and helpless. ‘I’m working on a paper,’ he says, watching Bond pull his trousers on. ‘So I’ll just be here. If you. You can come here, if you want. Whenever you want.’

 

Bond pauses halfway through buttoning his shirt and looks at Francis, hard.

 

‘We don’t have to talk about anything,’ Francis says. ‘Just.’ He can feel himself going red. He’s been so good at keeping his cool around Bond, up to this point. ‘If you need some company. A friend, you know?’

 

Bond’s shoulders slump.

 

‘I don’t have friends,’ he says simply. There’s no bite or malice to it. There might even be a trace of sadness in the way the words linger in the air.

 

‘James,’ Francis starts, but he’s gone before Francis can ask him to stay.

 

*

 

‘We’re expanding Q branch,’ Mallory says. His arm is still in its discreet black sling. ‘Recent…events demonstrated just how thin they’re stretched down there.’

 

Bond nods. ‘What does Q think about it?’

 

‘Q agrees, of course. He’s very happy dealing with the hardware side of things. The PM’s authorised creation of a cyber intelligence division. Long overdue, of course.’

 

‘Hmm.’

 

‘I’ve got a few Q branch stalwarts setting things up as we speak. I’m still looking for a division chief, but I just wanted to keep you abreast of this, as I imagine you’ll be having more and more to do with them.’

 

‘You mean, you’re warning me not to piss them off before they’ve even gotten off the ground?’

 

Mallory closes the file on his desk, a clear signal the meeting is over. ‘Exactly,’ he says firmly. In some ways, he and M are cut from the same cloth.

 

Bond gets up, his ribs still aching, and heads for the door.

 

‘Thank you, sir,’ he says.

 

‘007.’ Mallory already has his head buried in another file. The backlog from the inquest is still colossal, weeks later.

 

Hand on the doorknob, Bond stops. He’s not been back to the flat in Fulham, though it takes a colossal effort not to, some days. 

 

‘Sir?’

 

Mallory looks up. ‘Yes?’

 

‘I think I might have a suggestion. For division chief.’

 

*

 

_Three months later_

 

Bond is sweating. The old wound in his shoulder pulls, twinges with every punch, and his lungs burn more quickly than they used to. There’s speed and lethal power in his jabs, though, still.

 

‘007,’ a voice says from behind him. Bond stops the punching bag dead with one hand and turns round.

 

‘S,’ he says, smiling, drawing out the sibilance. ‘Don’t you look the part.’

 

‘What, because I’ve got an official SIS lanyard now?’

 

Bond laughs, grabbing a towel and wiping his face and neck. ‘How are you settling in? Need someone to…show you the ropes?’

 

It’s harmless. It’s just reflex. It’s how he talks to Moneypenny, to Tanner, to any lab-coated technician or trigger-happy field operative. It’s just his default conversational style. Bond can’t help but feel a pang of regret.

 

Francis is S now, and S is just another colleague charged with keeping 007 alive in the field, and this is what 007 – what _Bond –_ does. He flirts with the people who hold his life in their hands, to dispel the weight of his disposable mortality – but he holds them at a distance, too, so that there’s something living left behind to anchor him.

 

Francis knows it, too. He laughs lightly – the tone is set, now.

 

‘Q’s ready for you, if you’re done giving that punching bag grief. He was muttering something about a flame thrower and an Aston Martin when I left him, so I’d hurry up, if I were you.’ He looks mildly disapproving.

 

This is how they will be with each other now. This is all they will be to each other. S will keep 007 safe, and 007 will keep the country safe, and the universe will keep expanding, out and out and farther away, until one of them makes a mistake, and it all ends.

 

‘You could have told me you kill people _for the government,’_ Francis says as they head up to Q branch. He doesn’t seem angry – baffled, maybe, or curious.

 

Bond stops and looks at him. ‘Does it make a difference?’

 

Francis raises his eyebrows behind his glasses. ‘No, I suppose not,’ he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Tennyson's "Ulysses," of course.


End file.
